Waiting and Hiding in Grandma Klimek's Dining Room

Inside Grandma's Dining Room

Last time I talked with Sandy she mentioned the stained glass in Grandma Klimek's Dining Room. Where in the world could it be? How awful if it were broken. Better had it been stolen. Hopefully someone, somewhere still enjoyed it--but most likely it had been stored underneath a cabin, or in the big garage, or even under the lodge itself before the wrecking crew came in to tear the old building apart. Probably it had been there, dirty, unrecognizable, and ground to bits under the treads of the bulldozer or the heavy boots of men. Things get lost when taken from their proper place, even precious things.

There were two windows, with a clock between--remember? Where Mary Jane sat waiting for her mama to return from town. The clock ticked and tocked the minutes by like heartbeats that became more lonesome as time passed. She couldn't move, that little girl, so bound as she was to the waiting, as though she could work magic by her stillness and the listening to the heartbeats of the clock and of the rain, and gazing through the window down the road. But I've told you that before. Writing it didn't take it from me, though, and here it is again. Seventy years have passed, and here it still exists. The child cannot rise from her little chair underneath the clock and walk into the living room. Even more could she not take herself outside. Something that makes the magic of return might snap. Some silver cord. Might. Snap.

The Clock, Grandma, and Some Mid-day Guests

The clock is clear, but I can't see Grandma Klimek's face because of the blur. She must have turned her head, and back then in the time of analog and shutters and film, nothing moved so very fast. She managed to hide whatever might otherwise be clear about her. I've found no pictures taken in the kitchen. Maybe she could be more clear there. It's odd, though, because I think she enjoyed being noticed. But that doesn't mean something isn't also hidden, does it? I warm to her when I imagine she is hiding something so important to herself she would quickly turn her head to blur our seeing it.

Mary Jane was a silver cord, a circle 8 in and out of this room. (Maybe this room is a metaphor--I hadn't thought of that)  Maybe the child both kept and broke the spell, the way she brought the outside in and kept the inside out.

Outside

See the sign "REFRESHMENTS"? That's the outside of where you were a moment ago. From outside you cannot see the little girl underneath the clock, nor the woman who turned her face, nor the light through the stained glass, nor the linen-covered tables and chairs. You cannot see the buffet that held the ice-cream wafers with their soft cream filling. You cannot see the big Lake of the Woods Muskie on the wall, nor the elegant but unfortunate deer. You cannot see the fishermen. You cannot see the flowers. You cannot see the ice in the water glasses--ice that the winter before was taken from the lake and stored in the ice-house. You cannot hear the waitress argue with the cook behind the door to the kitchen. You cannot know about the hiding nor the waiting nor the little chair nor the magical spells.

Does it amaze you how different outside is from in? When you think about the flowers, does it amaze you that the geraniums in the window boxes outside look tattered? When you think about the linen covered tables and chairs, do you wonder about the rutted road and the weeds in the grass? Are you even sure that I'm telling you the truth, and that you've seen the in and out of the very same place?

I don't remember if all this amazed Mary Jane, though I am quite sure she felt and obeyed the magic of it. The be-still-and-wait wound the magic cord around the ticking of the clock, the dripping of the rain, the vision of an old, old car twisting down the gravel road and taking time with it--taking Mama out. The child held that place inside, underneath the ticking clock, keeping the magic cord, watching the raindrops on the gravel road. Splashing. (I've told you this before. Remember. But it doesn't disappear. And it is different this time. Do you see?) She stayed in. She held the cord. She kept the outside in. The rain slowed and ceased. The car twisted up the road. It parked underneath the stained glass windows. And the spell did not break.

The End of the Dock

End of the Dock

The lake had a way of drawing her. Her body drifted always towards the dock's edge. Be careful, her mama warned. She tried hard to walk in the middle. Veering off the way she often did troubled her and made her altogether leery about the dock. She shuffled her bare feet and got slivers which needed to be removed with a needle. She set her sights on each post, one after the other, walking only just that far, then sitting down. Over the edge on the surface of the water gas from the outboard motors made rainbows. She refocused her eyes to see deeper. Minnows darting through reeds. Floating moss. Green algae floating in the rust colored water. Sunlight piercing the current but not to the bottom. Maybe there was no bottom.

If she could get to the end she could sit there and fish with the short rod and reel her dad gave her. If she could get there without falling off the edge. It was better if the boats were in and tied up. It was better if someone held her hand, but she almost always was alone.

Older she became and finally did stand at the end of the dock with the rod and reel Daddy rigged and she fished.  Seldom did she fish from a boat.  This was a business, this fishing.  Everyone in her family was too busy seeing to it that the resort guests caught their limit of walleye to be thinking about entertaining a little girl.

Captain George, my dad

 Besides, the few times Daddy did take her out, she begged him not to go near the reed beds. She had seen the muskie, bigger than her own body, brought in by proud fishermen from Chicago or Houston.  They said they caught them at the edge of the reeds.  She imagined the fish gliding whale-like in the depths.  She imagined one of them taking her line.  Then what?  Pulling her out of the boat, for sure.  No, she would stick to fishing for walleyes, thank you, far from the reeds, off the islands where the lake bottom was hard clay under rippled sand.

Chucky L's dad took the two children fishing one afternoon and, much to Mary Jane's dismay, turned the small outboard motor boat towards the reeds on the Canadian side. The L family came to Klimek's Lodge each summer from Iowa, and had become family friends.  Young Chuck and Mary Jane were born the same year and their mothers pretended a liaison between the children before they could walk.  Most of my life I kept a tiny silver and turquoise ring Chucky gave Mary Jane the summer they were two years old.  I don't remember the incident but Mama kept photographs to document the event.  When my niece, Krista, was two years old I passed the ring on to her.

Chucky's dad acted strange all day.  Chucky might have been a pushy kid, six years old, maybe.  "the lake's too rough..." mumbled his dad.  "Can't go yet.  Maybe it'll calm down later this afternoon."  Still Chucky pushed. Mary Jane might have helped in her way, though my guess is that by that time she was hanging back from a probable initial enthusiasm.  Grumbling, Chucky's dad grabbed up his gear and hustled them towards the dock.  Suddenly Mary Jane completely understood that she didn't want to go.  Something was wrong with him.  Now I know that he was drunk.  His words slurred.  He dropped things.  After all that pushing, though, she understood that she no longer had a choice. 

The boat slapped the waves. She held onto the wooden bench seat.  She didn't dare say don't go near the reeds.  When he slowed the motor to trolling speed she did say softly, "Isn't this the Canadian reed bed?" 

"What the hell's the difference," he snapped back.  "There's not a game warden in sight."  He said he'd troll and we should put our lines in the water.  The boat bounced like a cork. Mary Jane dropped her line.  There might be a muskie down there.  Please, I don't want to catch it!  Chucky and his dad dropped their lines.  The motor sputtered and stopped.  "It's reeds," Mary Jane echoed information gleaned from her own dad.  It was her fishing line, tangled in the prop.  Mr. L leaned over the motor, swearing, trying to free the line.  He hadn't reeled in.  The reeds got closer and closer as the current took the boat towards them.  "Get the oar and push us out of these goddam things," he grouched.  The children tried, but they were only six years old.  The reeds rose tall and green all around the boat.  "God DAMN!  Can't you kids do anything right?"

His rod and reel jumped up and down beside his foot. She stared at it.  Nobody else was paying attention. She looked out to where the reeds thinned.  A huge fish broke the surface of the lake in a magnificent leap and just at that moment his rod and reel arched out of the boat and disappeared into the water. Mary Jane yelled, "A fish!"

"Damn! that was my best equipment.  God damn you kids, why in hell did I bring you out here anyhow?"

She sat shivering.  The waves tossed the little boat.  The wind felt cold and was getting stronger.  Chucky's dad couldn't fix the motor.  It was her fault.  She couldn't see anything but reeds and the boat had probably drifted into Canada.

My memory leaves me there, in the reed bed, and doesn't kick in again until the moment we arrive at the dock.  The water must have been low that year.  It was a long way from the boat up to the dock.  Chucky's dad lifted Mary Jane up to be taken by a dock hand and set safely on the wooden planks.  Then Chucky.  Lastly, the gear.  He let go before the dock hand had a good hold on the remaining rods.  Splash!  And gone.  Rainbow colors from the gasoline swirled in the water where they fell.

Coming in from the lake